Russian President Putin, on his call with the leaders of Norway and Finland, says they support any steps to restore relations with European countries

• Do not want a situation like that in the Strait of Hormuz to occur in Baltic Sea.

Leader-level signalling of willingness to restore ties with European states is the kind of thaw rhetoric that recurs at intervals through prolonged standoffs, and it has historically moved Russian-exposed assets only when accompanied by concrete steps: sanctions relief, resumed energy flows, or formal talks. Statements of this sort, made to Scandinavian counterparts rather than to Washington or Berlin, are typically low-cost and directional at best. The more market-relevant element is the Baltic Sea remark, which ties the diplomatic framing to shipping security: the Baltic is the corridor for remaining Russian crude and product exports via northern ports, and the comparison to the Strait of Hormuz frames it as an insurance and freight-risk question, the channel through which geopolitical premia actually reach crude benchmarks. Past episodes of tension around the Baltic have shown up first in war-risk insurance rates and tanker availability rather than in spot prices. Worth watching is whether any follow-on emerges on sanctions, transit regimes, or naval incident reporting in the region, since rhetoric alone has tended to fade without repricing EUR or energy. As it stands this is atmospherics, not action.